In order to provide mobile communication units, such as mobile phones and smart phones, with a range of functions, such as performing secure credit card transactions and other communications requiring a high level of security, secure elements embedded in a chip have proven useful.
A wireless service provider (also referred to as a secure element issuer) needs to be able to access the secure element in a number of situations, e.g. in order to perform communication, to perform setup operations, or to install, update and delete programs and functions etc. To gain access to the secure element, the issuer needs a set of keys corresponding to a set of keys stored within the secure element. Due to logistic issues in combination with the need for confidentiality, obtaining the right set of keys for a given secure element can be a cumbersome task for the issuers.
US 2007/0095927 A1 describes a system and method where a mobile device manufacturer receives secure elements from a vendor and installs them in the mobile devices as part of the manufacturing process. During installation of a secure element, the manufacturer securely passes an issuer-specific seed value to the secure element. Based on the seed value and a unique identifier of the secure element, the secure element generates a set of keys and stores them in its memory. With knowledge of the unique identifier, the issuer may then generate a corresponding set of keys to gain access to the secure element. However, in many cases the manufacturer will not know already at production time which issuer will actually be managing the mobile device later on, such that selection of the appropriate secure seed value will be difficult. Furthermore, a given issuer will not know the identifiers of the secure elements it will need to manage upfront, and will accordingly not be able to prepare the needed management scripts etc.
There may thus be a need for an improved and simplified way of initializing secure elements.